


Pesky Little Bird (Spread Your Wings and Fly)

by CleotheDreamer



Series: Character Exploration One-shots [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Hinata Shouyou Has ADHD, Hinata Shouyou is Sunshine, Light Angst, Mayhaps, One Shot, POV Hinata Shouyou, Projecting my issues on to fictional characters?, Self-Discovery, how is that not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24123931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleotheDreamer/pseuds/CleotheDreamer
Summary: Shouyou was used to assumptions. Somewhere along the way, he began to accept them.In which Hinata Shouyou discovers parts of himself that he always struggled with, but never acknowledged.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Karasuno Volleyball Club
Series: Character Exploration One-shots [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646509
Comments: 34
Kudos: 182
Collections: haikyuu meets adhd





	Pesky Little Bird (Spread Your Wings and Fly)

**Author's Note:**

> Me: *tired of watching people say shounen protagonists are unrealistic* hmm, high-key relate to lots of these “unrealistic” characters so it must be they're just neurodivergent :)  
> Them: No, _those_ people behave like *arbitrary example of something they've never experienced*  
> Me: *me blocking them out* Mmhmmm, Hinata Shouyou is definitely just ADHD, thank you for your contribution.
> 
> Hinata Shouyou and I are alike in a lot of ways. You should see me in gym class – people used to be super weirded out about how much effort I'd put into things that I wasn't even that interested in. (Flashback to 8th-grade gym volleyball and getting bruises in gym class because I dived for the ball every single time it was falling even though I didn't play volleyball and had no desire to at all. I got lots of bruises in gym class, now that I think about it.) But yeah, I'm also very different. There's just a lot of things I can relate to about him and they're usually things that can be linked to my ADHD.
> 
> Now, I have one question for my readers: How did I, of all people, write light angst? LIke, I _have_ written non-angsty things before, but when I write angst it's usually all out, gut-wrenchingly depressing stuff, sooooo, be proud that I learned how to tone it down please, lol.

Shouyou got distracted a lot.

It wasn't like he could help it. Kageyama made it sound like he was self-centered – the rants about his lack of focus being centered around his desire to be the Ace when, well, that wasn't the _entire_ truth. His reasoning for being distracted may have included that desire, but it wasn't the center.

It wasn't _why._

The 'why' was much more complicated than that. The 'why' was hands fidgeting and flapping and shaking when hyperactivity filled his veins like liquid caffeine. The 'why' was sitting quietly while his mind was absent on rollercoaster tracks of thoughts that dodged any semblance of rational coherence. The 'why' was stewing in anxiety, entire body tensed but unable to move as energy – _so much energy –_ floundered for somewhere to go, something to _do._

But, how could he explain _why_ to someone who didn't understand – who never fully could?

The world was loud to Shouyou. Not loud in a typical sense, but loud in a way that made his skin crawl and his limbs shake with overstimulation.

(And yet he found himself saying, 'huh?' and 'what did you say?' far more than the average person because, although everything was loud, that didn't mean that it was easy to understand.)

He found emotions hard to maintain, hard to control and reconcile with. He found himself spiraling from intrusive thoughts and having meltdowns in his room after arguments with his sister – his _younger_ sister – and feeling mortified over getting so worked up over yogurt. He was never able to regulate his emotions beyond extremes.

He thought that was normal – really, he'd only thought ADHD had made him more energetic. His diagnosis had never meant much to anyone else, so why would it mean much to him? He'd never looked into what it really entailed beyond knowing what it stood for. He'd never heard anyone mention problems that came from the disorder besides perhaps having trouble paying attention in class. He'd had some issues with that and, though his attention would stray sometimes, most of the time he would call himself hyper-focused so he had dismissed the issue pretty easily – dismissed the bad grades as ' _unintelligence'_ pretty easily. Really though, someone should have told him that hyper-focusing was a symptom of ADHD before he spent 6 hours making enough origami frogs to drown a grown adult.

(But it was never 'what are you struggling with Hinata?' and always 'just focus more on your studies' and 'you're stupid so stop being lazy and focus' so how was he supposed to know that having bad grades didn't _actually_ make him an unmotivated idiot, but instead someone struggling with executive dysfunction.)

He was 14 when he realized he wasn't normal. He should have realized it sooner, really, with all the times' people had told him he wasn't.

(Freak wasn't a word that made him flinch, though it hurt just as much as the first 100 times he'd been called it. What made him flinch – what made him come home and cry and wonder how he got so damn weak as to care so much about a simple word – was annoying.

'You're so annoying, Hinata.'

'You're being really annoying.'

Annoying meant that no one wanted you there. Annoying meant that you weren't just weird, you were bothersome – a chore to deal with. Annoying meant that there was something fundamentally wrong with you that other people were repulsed by.

He could deal with 'dumb' because people still liked dumb people. He could deal with 'freak' because freaks still had friends.

It was the annoying people that no one liked and no one tolerated.)  


People tended to like him despite that. He smiled a lot and was nice and, even if they didn't particularly like his short temper and loud outbursts, most people would still laugh at him non-maliciously. To a certain degree, his peers generally enjoyed his company.

But when they didn't, it burned. It wasn't a slow grief; it was like a knife stabbing deep into his chest and tearing out chunks of his soul on the way out.

Sometimes, a peer's eye-roll at his antics could feel debilitating.

He missed social cues, too. He wasn't entirely terrible with them, but he'd often find himself trying to fill in awkward silences with random nonsense. Though, staying quiet was usually for the best. He'd dig himself into holes with over-explaining that tended to insult rather than be the compliment he'd intended.

He couldn't stay on his own train of thought, not really. He would talk and suddenly he'd find himself saying words that no one, not even himself, could understand. His thoughts would get too fast for his mouth to keep up and then he'd pause and repeat things in an attempt to pretend he knew what his point had been.

When he couldn't convey what he was thinking, he would fill in words with random sound effects in the hope that people would understand him.

They never did.

(How many times had he been told, 'use your words, Hinata.'?)

When he got too excited or sad or angry it felt as though ants were crawling along his skin, filling him with the urge to howl and whoop.

('It was just so, so – '

Something in his brain blared: *too excited to think properly!* *too excited to think properly!*

So he spat out words to fill the silence of his overexcited mind.

‘ – GWAH! and WHOOP!’)

Sometimes he made strange noises just for fun, finding the shape of them in his mouth appealing. He would get the urge suddenly: to shout, to scream, to yell nonsense to the void.

He'd get lots of urges, really. He would often feel like he was being compelled by an outside force.

ADHD was something he'd known he'd had for as long as he could remember, but it hadn't helped. He'd been raised as if he didn't have it – treated himself as if he didn't have it – and he'd never really known that it was anything to be concerned about.

What's worse was when he told people and they'd say 'Of course you are! You're so hyper!' or 'I thought so!' even after they'd criticized all the parts of him that he'd later learned stemmed from his ADHD.

('You talk too much, who cares about that?'

'You work so hard at other things, you're just lazy if you can't finish your essay on time.'

'Stop fidgeting, you idiot.'

'You're too sensitive, it's not a big deal.')

So, he couldn't use it as an excuse, could he? What could he say to try to convince people he wasn't actually stupid, that he was truly putting effort into things?

('Even that poor dummy's using his brain... well, maybe not that much,' Tsukishima said, smirking.

'Did you just say 'not much'?! I think all the time, jerk!'

And he _did!_ It just happened to be on things that weren't always applicable.)

Sometimes, it felt like a hopeless dream to think he'd ever be given the chance to defend himself without being shot down – without his entire worth being picked apart by the surface level assumptions of strangers and friends alike. But, Shouyou got used to assumptions.

Somewhere along the way, he began to accept them.

He wondered if they would be written on his headstone.

('Here lies Hinata Shouyou – the hopeless idiot who was way too obsessed with volleyball and had _annoying_ amounts of energy.')

There came a time where the words didn't hurt as much anymore and that scared him more than anything. Because who was he without his heart – his sensitivity and empathy? Maybe he should have been happy, but the sudden lack of emotional responses felt like a loss of identity.

He thought it was awfully screwed up of him to only enjoy his soft heart once it was faded and worn out from years of overuse.

Maybe he would soar high enough to be noticed, one day, but it would probably be on clipped wings.

He wondered if people would still call his flight beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this as an actual story, what do you guys think? Yay or nay?
> 
> Lots of rambles about ADHD ahead:
> 
> The things described in this fanfic are symptoms linked with ADHD including executive dysfunction, emotional dysregulation, hyper-fixation, hyper-focusing, rejection sensitive dysphoria, the inability to regulate attention, hyperactivity, excessive use of filler words, impulsivity and more. I highly recommend anyone with or without ADHD to look into the disorder because only recently am I learning about just how complicated it is – and I've known I’ve had it my whole life. It's nice to know why I do the things I do, though! 
> 
> ADHD mostly affects the part of the brain dealing with executive function, or the ability to regulate attention and self-manage. This deals with the management of emotions as well and around 99% of people with ADHD struggle with rejection sensitive dysphoria (which is just a term that means being more sensitive to criticism, others opinions of you, and rejection/being more sensitive in general). 1/3 of people with ADHD say that it's the worst part (me included, oof). 
> 
> Also, people with ADHD can sometimes experience sensory overloads. A lot of times, Sensory Processing Disorder is confused for ADHD because they have similar manifestations, but people with ADHD can still have sensory issues without having SPD. This is more due to having too much stimuli and not enough ability to self-regulate your response to it. In the show, Hinata asks 'Huh?' a lot, and I know it's for comedic effect but that's what I do too because I can't differentiate between multiple noises at the same time. I have above average hearing but say I'm at a sports game – I will not hear a word that someone tries to say to me because I won't be able to process it and trying to differentiate between the noise of the game, the audience, and the person speaking to me will frequently cause me extreme anxiety and sometimes send me into sensory overload. (Not the same as getting overwhelmed by loud noises, btw. I literally can't watch tv without subtitles unless I want to rewind every fifteen seconds to try to separate the background noises from the main dialogue.)
> 
> Anyway, there's a lot to ADHD and Shouyou is an easy character to project that onto because he displays soooo many of its symptoms, lol! Thanks for reading!


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